The gastrointestinal (GI) tract, which houses over one thousand distinct bacterial species and an estimated excess of 1×1014 microorganisms, appears to be central in defining human host health status and a key part of the microbiome. Disruption of this microbiome is believed to be causative of a number of disorders.
Indeed, antibiotics, often a frontline therapy to prevent deleterious effects of microbes on human health can induce disruption in the microbiome, including in the GI tract, and lead to further disease. For instance, beta-lactam antibiotics are excreted in the bile, which can damage the colonic microflora and lead to serious illnesses such as Clostridium difficile infection.
Current approaches to avoid this scenario include oral agents that degrade beta-lactam antibiotics in the small intestine to protect the microbiome. However, current therapies target only specific antibiotics and thus there is a need to expand the spectrum of these microbiome-sparing agents.
There remains a need for agents that prevent microbiome disruption by antibiotics while not reducing or eradicating the beneficial anti-infective effects of these antibiotics in a subject.